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The goal of close reading is to enable students to deeply engage with high-quality, challenging texts so that they will achieve key goals of College and Career Ready Standards by being able to read, comprehend, and evaluate increasingly complex text independently. This Spotlight centers on the CSAI...

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This report addresses the development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and common assessments. The report provides an overview of postsecondary’s role in preparing K–12 students for first-year, freshman college courses.

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This article identifies two mind-sets about students’ intelligence; that is, either intelligence is static, or intelligence can grow. This article states: “Only in growth mind-set cultures, where teachers and administrators are encouraged to fulfill their potential, will they be able to help their...

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This compendium summarizes published research on different areas of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This particular resource (users should download the "Implementation" paper) is to create “an accessible and readable overview of current research” to inform implementation, policy discussions...

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In this testimony before the New York State Office of the Governor Common Core Implementation Panel, Carmel Martin, Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, outlines four areas that she believes the state’s leaders must tackle in order to make translation from the...

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This Kansas College and Career Ready Standards webpage has links to a substantial number of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) documents covering a broad range of topics. They range from resources to help communicate the CCSS to broad constituencies, to data collection, fact sheets, and links to...

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The purpose of this guide is to provide states with strategies for developing universally designed assessments, including conceptualization and item construction; field testing; item reviews; statewide operation; and evaluation. Universal design for assessments is an approach to educational...

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This report provides an update on testing accommodations research, with a focus on the effect of accommodations on students with disabilities (SWDs). The primary purpose of the research featured in this review is to evaluate the comparability of test scores when assessments are administered with...

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This study reviews and summarizes alternate assessment policies and practices—and their implementation and impact—for the most significantly cognitively disabled students, across the five states in the Southwest Region. The states’ alternate assessments address the U.S. Department of Education’s...

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This article provides a brief review of select early childhood (EC) assessment tools that demonstrate instructional validity. The article suggests methods to strengthen the instructional and intervention validity of EC assessments in the response-to-intervention frameworks context. The article...

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This publication focuses on key ideas and recommendations for effective Response to Intervention (RTI) programs. The publication serves as a reference for information about RTI programs. RTI is an area of focus for the U.S. Department of Education–funded Center on Instruction. The Center on...

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This report examines the progress in raising achievement for English language learner (ELL) students, and it describes the factors that make it difficult to accurately assess what ELL students know and can do. The Center on Education Policy, an independent nonprofit organization, with technical...

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This article discusses the issues and implications of high-stakes tests on English language learner (ELL) students. Specifically, ELL students are increasingly included in high-stakes assessments connected to accountability efforts (e.g., the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 [NCLB]), and thus it is...

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This study explores the effectiveness of bilingual dictionaries and linguistic modification on assessment measures. Such language accommodations are thought to help lower the achievement gap among students with language differences.

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This article examines how five demographically dissimilar school districts use assessment and accountability as an impetus to implement positive changes in their schools. The article emphasizes that each district refrains from using assessment data as the reason that teachers cannot teach or that...

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This 2006 publication is the third in a series of three Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners publications. This publication addresses the increased awareness by schools, districts, and states of the academic needs and achievement of English language learner (ELL)...

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This study, which focuses on three districts in New York State, uses interviews with the districts’ and schools’ personnel and documents from the state’s and districts’ websites to examine practices for identifying learning disabilities among students who are English language learners and the...

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This PowerPoint presentation, with accompanying Presenter’s Manual, provides an overview of progress monitoring systems that can be used to track student growth in elementary school mathematics. The presentation was made at the Math Summit: Providing Evidence-Based Practices and Implications of...

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This article focuses on issues regarding the use of response to intervention (RTI) with English language learner (ELL) students. The article examines and highlights key points from current literature about reading instruction, ELL students, RTI, and students with learning disabilities. The article...

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This document presents general accessibility guidelines that item writers and item reviewers must follow when developing items and tasks for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced). The guidelines combine the best practices that guided the development of paper-based tests for...

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This website is a resource for the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium’s English Language Development (ELD) Standards. The WIDA ELD Standards are designed as a curriculum and instruction planning tool to assist educators in determining English language learner (ELL)...

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Central to the process of using assessment for (and as) learning is the way in which pupils become involved in all learning and assessment processes: the explanations and classroom examples in this book demonstrate why and how to do it. Drawn from across the age range, and all subjects, the...

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This guide is intended to enhance the knowledge and build the capacity of state, district, and school personnel to implement effective formative assessment practice. It defines formative assessment, examines the research, and outlines the components needed to develop a high-quality, research-based...

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As an outgrowth of the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), districts are increasingly implementing interim or benchmark assessments. This report investigates various stakeholders’ original purposes in adopting interim or benchmark assessments, ensuing...

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This article reviews formative assessment research focusing on features that help to explain how formative assessment works to improve learning. The article offers criteria to clarify the distinction between formative assessment and formative program evaluation. The article proposes solutions for...

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This resource focuses on the writing achievement of American students, most of whom do not write well enough to meet grade-level demands, despite improvement in the last 20 years (Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008). The inability to effectively convey thoughts and ideas through writing is...

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This article reports on a study about the achievement of secondary school students who worked in classrooms where teachers were given the time to develop formative assessment strategies. Specifically, twenty-four teachers (two science and two mathematics teachers, in each of six schools, in two...

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This technical report details a study that examines three questions relating to formative assessment: (1) What is the quality of implementation of a formative assessment science unit in middle school classrooms? (2) What is the quality of teacher feedback provided to students? (3) To what degree do...

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This article focuses on the growing number of school districts in the United States that are introducing formative assessment systems to measure student skills in core subjects throughout the year. The article states that the underlying logic is that providing teachers with timely information on...

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Supporting research-based decision-making in standards and assessment

WestEd and CRESST, two national leaders in the standards and assessment field, continue their collaboration in providing high-quality research support and technical assistance to states as the Center on Standards and Assessment Implementation (CSAI).

This award is a grant under prime award #S283B050022A between the U.S. Department of Education and WestEd. The findings and opinions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the positions or policies of the U.S. Department of Education. This site and its contents copyright WestEd. All rights reserved.